Hunter
The hunter class performs pulling, threat redirection, crowd control, and primarily ranged damage. Hunters have pets that add to their DPS and help manage aggro. They can also track, tame and train animals and beasts found in the wild. The well trained pet, on countless occasions, has saved a hunter's life. It has been said by many, and throughout history, that hunters consider their weapons and pets to be their only true friends. In some other games, such as Everquest, the hunter is a ranged/melee hybrid that can rely on both, when the need arises. In World of Warcraft, this is generally not the case. The survival tree offers some enhancement to melee ability, but the class's damage mitigation is poor compared to pure melee classes and its melee abilities are generally considered too limited to be a practical source of DPS. Overview * Hunters tame the wild beasts of Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Outland and Northrend, training them to fight at their side. Hunters are one of the seven classes that can have combat pets, however, they are the only ones that can name and feed their pets. Hunters would do well to pay attention to their pets' happiness. * Hunters excel in outdoor survival skills, such as tracking and laying traps. * Hunters wear leather and cloth armor until level 40, at which they gain access to equipping mail armor. Hunters start with a two-handed axe and a gun, crossbow, or bow. With training, they can learn all other weapon skills except wands, maces, and two-handed maces. They are unable to use shields or plate armor. * Hunters have many magical abilities that require mana, such as pet healing and special shots, but their mana pools are not as large as those of dedicated spellcasters. * Hunters can take on various Animal Aspects that grant special abilities, such as increased dodge rating, improved run speed, or even additional nature resistance. Background The hunter is a stalker in the wilds, living on his knowledge of survival and skill with a bow or rifle. He is deeply in tune with nature, and some of its mightiest beasts are his allies. Of Azeroth's many creatures, few can resist the hunter's call, and fewer can survive his fury. Hunters are as varied as the world's many climates, but they are universally renowned for their amazing abilities to find their prey and bring it down. They come from any race (players are restricted to seven races, see below), though certain races naturally excel at the hunter's profession. Most hunters seek to aid the balance of nature along with their druidic allies.World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game, 73 Elven rangers are not alone in their mastery of the wilderness. While an elven ranger prefers the bow, the hunter would rather get up close. A hunter is skilled in stealth, slipping through the woods like a ghost. Orcs of the Horde first learned the ways of the hunter from forest trolls on Lordaeron and tauren have been masters of the hunt since the dawn of the world. Like the shaman of the Horde, hunters call upon the spirits of the land, wind, and fire to aid them in their hunts and tasks. Their spells focus on the elements and the land.Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game, 80, 82 The hunter is one of the oldest classes in history. They represent a deep connection between man and beast, and the hunters of Warcraft are not merely individuals who track animals and slay them for food, but custodians of balance. They understand the natural circle of life and death, and the part they must play in maintaining it not simply as researchers, but as active participants. The "Hunt" is venerated, and the prey they choose to stalk is given as much respect as the predators hunters choose to learn from and embody. All hunters create lifelong friendships with animal companions, who are also often their best and only friends, if the stereotype of the reclusive huntsman is to be believed. Hunters come in all shapes, forms, sizes and specialties, but in World of Warcraft, all hunters specialize to be marksmen (however, not all hunters choose to specialize in the marksmanship talent tree). Hunters are a curious mix of mysticism and rough wilderness know-how. They can learn to mystically align themselves with the aspects of various animals to assist them: the spryness of a monkey, the sharp eyes of a hawk, and the swiftness of a cheetah; they gift themselves with a higher resistance against the dangers of the most important thing of all in the rites of a hunter — the very Wilds he and his prey live in. Hunters also derive a system of hand-to-hand combat inspired by the attacks and counterattacks of various animals, and use magically empowered traps to maim and snare their prey. They have various shots imbued with magic or explosives to snare, poison, handicap and disorient their targets. They can even hold their breath and slow their heartbeat to a highly infrequent, inconsequential tap to give their pursuers the impression that they are dead. The hunter is the choice of life for those who reject societies that oppress the natural role as prey and hunter, and also reject the druidic stance that we should be healers and observers rather than active participants in the "Great Hunt". They follow a life of reverence for nature complimenting their tradition and willingness to use man-made tools. We are all tool-using creatures after all, and it is only natural to use that advantage afforded by nature to be better hunters, though there are also many hunters who prefer a more direct approach to tracking and hunting. Note: The term "hunter" can refer to the combat class, as well as to those who go hunting as a profession, hobby, or survival skill. The two are not identical, as not all that hunt are a hunter class. The above lore only refers to the specific class. Notable hunters * Cairne Bloodhoof * Malorne * Hemet Nesingwary * Tyrande Whisperwind Races The hunter class can be played by the following races: Racial abilities These are some relevant racial traits to hunters: * Blood elves — Have the racial ability Arcane Torrent. It provides a 2 second, area of effect silence as well as refilling mana. * Draenei — Heroic Presence improves hit by 1% (~33 rating at level 80) for the hunter, their pet, and everyone in their party. Does NOT stack. Their Gift of the Naaru ability also gives hunters a heal over time. * Dwarves — Gun Specialization increases critical strike chance with guns by 1%. * Night elves — Shadowmeld Provides the hunter with a second aggro-dump (for when Feign Death is resisted. Also allows the hunter to enter a stealth state (which breaks on movement); can be very useful for surprising unsuspecting PvPers (especially with a Cat) * Orcs — Command increases pet damage by 5%. Blood Fury acts as an extra trinket (boosting your attack power). * Trolls — Bow Specialization increases chance to critically hit with bows by 1%. Berserking acts as an extra trinket (boosting your attack speed). * Tauren — War Stomp Causes a short area-of-effect stun around the hunter, useful for getting out of melee range. Other racial attributes can also be useful, but may not be specifically relevant to hunters as a class. As always, research into all the racial traits of each race will make a player's decision better informed. Talents and abilities Hunters have a vast range of talents and abilities. These can be roughly categorized into the following: Ranged fighting armor (the Arena season 3 hunter set), wielding the Vengeful Gladiator's Longbow.]] Ranged fighting requires a choice between a gun, bow, or a crossbow. When starting, this will depend on your race. Dwarves and tauren are given guns, draenei start with crossbows, and the other races get bows. Later on, you can train to use the ranged weapons that aren't inherent to your race. In general, crossbows are relatively slow, but hit harder and are favored for increasing burst damage, while guns are relatively fast and good for steady grinding at the cost of using more ammunition than other weapons. Bows have moderate attack speed and are favored for sustained DPS. Initially, weapon speed will be inconsequential since the only available abilities consist of Auto-Shot and various instant casts. Guns can be crafted by engineers, but there are no craftable bows or crossbows, so most ranged upgrades will come from mob drops and quest rewards. Guns use bullets while bows and crossbows use arrows. Different types of ammunition add different amounts of DPS; generally, the higher level you are, the higher DPS ammunition you can access. Standard white quality bullets and arrows of varying DPS are available at most innkeepers and almost all general goods vendors, as well as special city vendors. There is also special ammunition that can be crafted by engineers or bought as reputation rewards; these projectiles are typically expensive and not very economical for everyday use. For further information see the hunter tactics page. Stings Hunters have stings, which are specialized debuffs they can apply to targets to help them address specific situations. Only one sting per hunter can be active on any one target. Scorpid Sting is by far the most useful utility in PvE, capable of debuffing even a raid boss's hit chance. However, Scorpid Stings from multiple hunters overwrite instead of stacking. Serpent Sting is common for high DPS shot rotations along with Steady Shot, especially when used in conjunction with Glyph of Steady Shot. Viper Sting is very useful in PvP but it has incredible use in PvE as well. Before it was considered as a waste of mana because of its low mana drain, but with the addition of Chimera Shot marksmanship hunters can use it to replenish their own mana more quickly. This combination allows hunters to regain mana without suffering the damage reduction from Aspect of the Viper. However, this only applies to fights with mana-using enemies. Shots Hunters also make heavy use of special shots to supplement their DPS and provide utility to their groups. The bulk of a hunter's damage and utility will come from the use of these shots. Since Explosive Shot and Arcane Shot share cooldowns, as do Multi-Shot and Aimed Shot, the shots the hunter uses depend on his spec. Survival hunters use Explosive Shot, while beast masters and marksmen use Arcane Shot, while Aimed Shot is used if available. Steady Shot is used whenever all other shots are on cooldown. Regardless of their spec, any hunter not getting at least a third of his/her damage from Steady Shot after level 50 is most likely not using it enough. In the past, the hunter could not fire his Auto Shot if he was casting another spell at the same time. The Auto Shot swing timer was still counting but would not fire over another shot. This was called "clipping Auto Shot" and would greatly reduce DPS. However, this doesn't happen anymore, and Auto Shot would fire regardless of other spells being cast, but only if the hunter is standing. Moving still prevents firing. Due to clipping consideration, weapon speed used to be crucial to maximizing dps with shot rotation, and a hunter should choose a ranged weapon of an appropriate speed (2.7 for beast masters, 3-3.1 for survivalists and marksmen). That is, if your crossbow is 3.2 second cast time, your Arcane Shot is at normal 6 second and your Steady Shot is at 2 second cool down, you should fire Arcane Shot -> Auto Shot -> Steady Shot -> Auto Shot -> Steady Shot -> Arcane Shot. Fire Arcane Shot when ever it is ready and allow a Auto Shot between Steady Shots. These days, however, all weapons have the same speed, and since shot rotations are not used, you should use the weapon with best dps and stats, regardless of speed. Melee fighting While hunters are primarily a ranged class, they do possess some melee abilities. They are nowhere near as powerful as the abilities of a true melee class such as a rogue, but they are still useful in situations where the target is too close to be hit with ranged attacks. (Note: There used to be an 8-yard zone immediately beyond the hunter's melee range where range weapons couldn't be used. This "Dead Zone" was done away with in Patch 2.3, much to the dismay of PvP clothies.) The general goal in using these moves is to continue inflicting damage while attempting to open distance, hence these abilities have limited uses, cooldowns, or some kind of movement impairment effect. Combat pets Pets are the most important tools in the hands of a hunter. They serve as aggro-management, additional DPS, and as tanks. The pet is essential to all specs, dealing anywhere from 10% of total damage for a marksman to 50% for a beast master. Formerly, pets had anemic damage potential and weak AI that often made them more of a danger to a raid than an asset. But improved AI - pets now always attack from the back of a monster - and an innate 90% damage avoidance has made this no longer a concern. Many beast-type mobs can be tamed, and each offer a set of unique active skills (there are special abilities just for wolves, just for cats, etc). In addition, certain pet types are tanking-oriented (such as bears and turtles), and others are DPS-oriented (such as cats and owls). Combined with the diversity of armor, stamina and resistance buffs, pets are allowed a great deal of customization. Many hunters have dedicated pets for specific instances, PvP, tanking, and so on. Hunters can tame pets at level 10 by completing a short series of quests. They are able to control the pet through various commands. Although hunters can have only one active pet at a time, the stable can house up to 4 additional pets. Traps Hunters have five different types of traps available for use. Some traps are a type of Crowd Control; others are a source of damage. Traps exist for 30 seconds, and have separate 30 second cooldown categores: Fire (Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Black Arrow), Frost (Freezing Trap, Frost Trap) and Nature Snake Trap. A hunter can have one trap of each category placed at one time. Traps are within the domain of the survival sub-school, and although the basic traps are trainable by hunters of any spec, the survival tree contains numerous talents to enhance their use. Aspects Hunters have eight aspects at their disposal. Only one aspect may be active at a time. Aspects will only affect the hunter, unless stated otherwise. The aspects are part of the beast mastery school, and while the base aspects are trainable by hunters of any specialization, the beast mastery tree contains talents which enhance their use. Aspects range in use from self-protection to speed boosts. Tracking Hunters can track eight different types of units. Only one tracking ability may be active at a time, which includes the tracking for mining veins, herbs, and fish. Tracking became more important part of survival hunter after the implementation of Improved Tracking which increases hunter damage against different creature types. Hunter talents Talents are a way to specialize your character by enhancing your skills and/or learning new skills. Starting at level 10, you will receive a talent point every time you gain a level. There are three categories for hunter talents: *Beast mastery *Marksmanship *Survival For further information see hunter talents, hunter talent discussion. Talent calculators can be found at Official Blizzard Talent Calculator or Wowhead Talent Calculator. Gear Armor Hunters can use cloth and leather initially. At level 40 they can train to use mail. See hunter sets for a list of hunter armor sets. Weapons Hunters can learn how to use bows, guns, crossbows, thrown weapons, daggers, axes, fist weapons, swords, polearms, staves, two-handed axes, and two-handed swords. The only weapons they cannot use are wands and one-handed and two-handed maces. Upon reaching level 20, hunters can learn the Dual Wield skill. This allows them to wield two one-handed weapons at the same time. Since one two-handed weapon provides more item budget than two one-handed weapons, they will seldom want to do this at higher levels. See hunter weapon for an explanation of the value of the various stat bonuses and a list of melee weapons suitable for hunters. Attribute conversions Please note that although 14 RAP gives a damage bonus equivalent to 1 DPS, the actual damage bonus per attack depends on weapon speed. This is before haste effects (Rapid Fire, etc.). In the case of Multi-Shot and Aimed Shot, the Attack Power contribution is normalized. Also note that although 14 agility = 14 AP which causes a 1 DPS increase, agility will also provide an extra critical strike bonus which must be considered. Roughly one can say that for DPS, [[Formulas:Item Values|'1 agility' ≈ 1 attack power + 0.552 crit rating]]. The maximum hit rating needed for level 80 hunters attacking boss mobs is 263 (262.32), which equals +8% chance to hit. For each talent point spent in the Focused Aim talent in the marksmanship tree, the amount of hit percentage needed will decrease by 1%. The maximum needed hit percentage for draenei hunters is reduced by an additional 1% due to their racial ability Heroic Presence. Expertise, added in 2.3, has no effect on ranged weapons. Wrath of the Lich King Changes Disengage This ability no longer reduces threat when used, as it did pre WotLK. This ability now causes the hunter to leap backward up to 13 yards. This ability can only be used in combat. Pets Several new pets were introduced in WotLK. Pet skills were redesigned and pet talents were introduced, with a tanking talent tree (Tenacity), a DPS talent tree (Ferocity), and a utility talent tree (Cunning). Each kind of pet family has its own talent tree, its own unique abilities and attribute bonuses. Pet training points were removed. One of the talents shown at the WWI was Cornered: When your pet is under 20% health, it deals 20% extra damage. Beast mastery hunters now have the opportunity to tame exotic beasts, as well as access to four additional pet talent points. Steady Shot The shot clipping was removed from Steady Shot; it can be used without interrupting Auto Shot. Misdirection Instead of having 3 static charges used by shots, this was redesigned to redirect all threat for 4 seconds. Cataclysm Changes In the upcoming Cataclysm expansion, hunters will no longer use mana. Hunters will instead draw upon focus as a primary resource, similar to energy used by rogues. This is likely to shift haste to a primary stat for focus regeneration. Hunters will also derive attack power solely from agility, at 2 points of AP for each agility point. End-game expectations A hunter's primary responsibility in nearly all raid encounters is to sustainably generate high DPS. They should know when to use Feign Death to get rid of aggro before they gain more aggro than the raid's primary tank, and then continue dealing damage. They will also need a large mana pool and know how to use their abilities without running out of mana too quickly. Mana regen from abilities such as Aspect of the Viper can help. You will almost never be asked to trap during raids, but you might be asked during 5man groups and heroics. Trapping is a form of Crowd Control. This is typically done by laying down a Freezing Trap in front of you before the pull, using Distracting Shot to steal aggro after tank pulls, thus making the mob run at you and into the Freezing Trap. Hitting the Mob with a Concussive Shot as it comes to the trap is a good way to buy cool down time, making it easier to re-trap. The highest rank of Freezing Trap gained at level 60 will freeze the enemy for 20 seconds, effectively taking it out of the battle for that short time. The generally accepted raid symbol for this is a blue square, although it is very important to confirm this beforehand. The tank or off-tank will usually be responsible for taking aggro off of you when the group is ready to deal with the mob. A skilled hunter of any spec should be able to keep at least one target controlled indefinitely. For beast masters, the pet stun Intimidation is helpful, and for survival Scatter Shot helps kill time between trap cool downs. All specs can use Concussive Shot, pet tanking/Misdirection/sacrificing and Wing Clip to buy time while keeping a mob occupied. A trap that hasn't been tripped will exist for 30 seconds, but comes off of cooldown after only 30 seconds. Only one untriggered trap can exist at a time, but it is possible to lay a trap before the pull, wait 30 seconds to let the cooldown, trap a mob, and then move away a small distance and lay another trap. Whenever the first trap's effect wears off, the mob will usually run for you, and right into another freeze trap. This is called chain-trapping a mob. The 2-piece set bonus of Beast Lord Armor reduces the cooldown on your traps by 4 seconds, and some raiders gain only two pieces and equip them only for special boss fights were it is highly important Crowd Control, such as the Moroes fight in Karazhan. When trapping in anything heroic level and beyond, if you know Misdirection will not be required on a tank in the next 30 seconds, it can be very useful to trap casters (such as the Spell Shades in Karazhan). This is accomplished by posting the pet out of line of sight or far enough away that a trap can be placed such that the caster will have to run into it before the pet is in its range. Once the mob is trapped, the pet can be sent into combat and a new trap placed on the other side. This is also very useful, such as with the spell shades, when dealing with mobs that constantly resist traps, as the pet will already be tanking the mob (most likely dying in the process). Still, this is much better than the hunter having initial aggro when things go wrong. In some cases you will be asked to Kite one or more creatures that either cannot or should not be killed during a specific encounter, allowing the rest of the raid to focus on other needs in order defeat the objective. Kiting is a skill that is best accomplished by hunters because of their Aspect of the Cheetah, pets, and armor rating (mages are quite skilled at snare/root kiting, but few instances require such a technique and is intense in its use of mana) and requires a lot of practice). While kiting, you will need to shoot your target with instant abilities, and often use speed boosts (such as the movement speed enchantment for foot gear, speed potions, and/or using Aspect of the Cheetah). Kiting, for most hunters, is the hardest skill to learn, yet is considered by many to be the most important skill. PvP Hunters wishing to participate in end-game PvP will find any of the talent trees help them towards their goals of massive player destruction! In beast mastery, a PvP hunter will find the skills of Intimidation, Bestial Wrath (to include The Beast Within), and a deadly pet worthy of causing constant havoc (especially to casters); a beast mastery hunter would be considered ill-equipped in PvP without them. Bestial Wrath primarily enables beast mastery to be the hunter's primary anti-caster spec, although it can have more difficulty against the melee classes (warrior, rogue, paladin). The marksman tree skills of Improved Concussive Shot, Mortal Shots, Barrage, Improved Barrage, Concussive Barrage are all excellent in a PvP setting, with the skills of Lethal Shots, and Silencing Shot being considered "must haves" within the tree. These talents in the tree enables the hunter to inflict immense Burst damage. In terms of targets, marksmanship can to some extent deal with either casters or melee equally well, but does not specialise against either. Finally, the survival hunter has many tricks that allow them to escape the deadzone (Note: The deadzone was done away with in Patch 2.3, much to the dismay of mages using Frost Nova.) as well as dish out the pain, with such skill as Humanoid Slaying, Savage Strikes, Deterrence & Counterattack, and Master Tactician, followed by the "can't do without" skills of Hawk Eye, Improved Wing Clip, Entrapment, Survivalist, Killer Instinct, Wyvern Sting and Scatter Shot. As beast mastery is designed to deal most effectively with the caster classes, so survival is specialised, conversely, towards the melee classes, and likewise also has somewhat more difficulty against casters. Some of these skills are considered universal abilities that should be in any PvP hunter talent build, no matter which tree you put the majority of your points into. These include Hawk Eye, which allows you to do damage from farther away, as well as Entrapment, which used with Frost Trap, can turn the tide of an entire battle if used strategically, and Lethal Shots, which provides a sizable increase to your critical hit rate for only 5 points into marksmanship. Hunters excel at taking out soft targets like warlocks, priests, and mages from a distance, and should do so before moving on to hard targets such as warriors and paladins, though if a rogue is observed it is the hunter who is best equipped to track and expose the rogue by marking him with Hunter's Mark. Hunter's pets can also break an unseen rogue's stealth if he is close and the pet is on aggressive. You may also want to look at getting a lot of stamina enchants so you will have more health to face a warrior or carry a flag in Warsong Gulch. Reputation This class's social reputation within the game is poor, with substantial prejudice directed towards it, possibly because of their ranged attacks. Because of this, when playing a hunter it is necessary to be proactive in establishing your individual credibility in the eyes of non-hunter players. The hunter tactics page, as well as the Notes section at the bottom of this page, can offer the reader some information on how they can do this. With the advent of Wrath of the Lich King some of the social stigma surrounding "huntards" has lessened. In addition, raiders have noted an improvement in the median skill level of hunters; thus improving the standing of the class. Notes * Hunters are the third most played class according to Warcraft Realms. * The "OMG HUNTER LOOT" / "That's a hunter weapon!" : jokes exists for a reason. Don't forget you share your gear class with many other classes. It's very unlikely you're the only person who needs any given drop. Do not be surprised if other classes also compete with you for ranged weapons, even though, technically speaking, they shouldn't. From a use point of view, a warrior might vaguely be able to justify rolling on a high level ranged weapon; if he's a tank, he can use it for pulling. A rogue can not, unless it increases his attack power in some way. Still, a rogue rolling on a bow for stats against a hunter would be equivalent to a hunter rolling on daggers against a rogue for the same reason. HOWEVER: Be aware of end game bows and guns...these will all certainly belong to a hunter, and a rogue or warrior rolling need on an epic bow or, god forbid, , is unfortunately confirmed. * Always keep an eye on your bullets or arrows; you don't want to run out of ammo in the middle of a fight. Never be afraid to bring extra ammunition if needed in your normal bag slots. In high level raiding or arena, it is advisable to use the best (highest damage) ammunition you can obtain and equip. Currently, that is the engineer-created or . It is not uncommon for hunters to choose engineering solely for creating ammo. * While the hunter is an easy class to play at a superficial level, it can be a highly challenging class to play well. People will consistently tell you that damage is the only reason for a hunter's existence; in raids, and possibly in soloing that might be true, but in five man instances and battleground pvp in particular, it isn't. You can use traps as a form of crowd control, and you need to monitor your pet to ensure that it does not cause problems. * In addition, in most MMORPGs, the hunter or ranger class variant is usually recognized as the ideal ranged puller in a group. World of Warcraft is somewhat unique in that within its culture, ranged pulling is generally not considered a hunter's responsibility, to the point where hunters in groups will actually be expressly forbidden from doing so. This is true despite the fact that, as with other games, in WoW Blizzard has equipped the hunter with numerous unique abilities (Disengage, Feign Death, Tracking) to assist them in the accomplishment of that task. The advent of Misdirection has changed this a bit, with tanks often requesting that a hunter "MD that mob to me." * In combat, hunters have the ability to quickly remove all threat they have generated on a target via Feign Death. This ability no longer removes you from combat when fighting raid bosses.. * Pets in instances should be controlled carefully and watched closely; one wrong click can very well get you and the party or even raid killed. You should set your pet on passive or defensive mode (pets have been known to respond to the presence of World Dragons when in defensive as if on aggressive) as well as disabling autocast for Growl and any other AoE abilities to be secure. * While some inexperienced MM and SV hunters will completely dismiss their pets to avoid problems, doing so loses them more dps than switching from a 25-man raid-drop bow to a level 30 bow would. A part of playing a hunter is pet control. *Although hunters are the second most popular class at 70, they are the least common in 2k+ arena teams of all kinds. Note The hunter (prestige class) was replaced with the hunter (core class) in the World of Warcraft RPG. See Also Level 19 hunter twinking guide Level 29 hunter twinking guide Level 60 hunter twinking_guide References External links * Official forums on Worldofwarcraft.com * Coldfront — A fansite and forums, by hunters for hunters * Game Tactics — Game Tactics hunter Guide * Raptor Syndicate — Pure PvE Guide for hunters (not updated for WotLK) * Hunter Guides — WoW Hunter Guides (blog) * Good Intentions — Pet Abilities Table * Petopia — Hunter Pet Information * Artanis-Hunter-Guide — The most detailed class guide from Pie_Masters Productions (stopped new posts on April 8, 2009) * BigRedKitty.net - Big Red Kitty main site (stopped new posts on April 8, 2009) * The Spirit Beast Within - Tips, tricks and guides stories of a tauren hunter * Hunter Loot - A guide to WotLK loot for different hunter specs * TribunalxHunter - A BM Hunter's Guide for Quests, Tips, Raids, Gold and Randoms. it:Cacciatore he:צייד pl: Category:Hunters Category:WoW classes Category:Core classes Category:World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game